 |
| Top diplomat: He was South Korea's foreign minister. David Karp/AP |
U.N.'s Ban Ki Moon emerges as dogged reformer
In his 15 months as UN secretary-general, he has insisted that the UN come to embody two qualities not always associated with it: efficiency and responsiveness.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the March 12, 2008 edition
Page 1 of 3
United Nations, N.Y. - When two experts from a new United Nations crisis-prevention team were dispatched to help douse Kenya's postelection blaze – before they could even meet fellow team members in New York – it was pure Ban Ki Moon.
After 15 months as UN secretary-general, Mr. Ban has established a reputation as a diligent and dogged diplomat who insists that the UN come to embody two qualities not always associated with it: efficiency and responsiveness.
The two experts, who lent technical support to the high-profile (and ultimately successful) intervention by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, provide one example of how Ban is pushing to move the UN from a traditional stance of "why we can't" to one of "how we can."
The former South Korean foreign minister has also made some early missteps – showing perhaps too much disregard for the rules of the house, according to some, and ruffling the feathers of an ambassadorial corps accustomed to deference and patronage. Still, Ban is showing signs of making headway at the UN headquarters on New York's East River.
After reorganizing the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations – in part to cleanse it of the taint of abuse scandals over recent years – Ban is pressing ahead on reform and expansion of the UN's political-affairs activities. Such activities come under a relatively new arm of the UN that follows through on policy implementation and deals with issues like election monitoring and judicial reforms.
The world's top diplomat frequently notes that preventive action is less costly than peacekeeping after a conflict – meaning that innovations like the crisis-prevention team could be harbingers of things to come.
Then, too, Ban is concentrating on two daunting issues he decided to take on soon after assuming office: climate change and Sudan, with its violence-torn province of Darfur.
"When he takes on a problem like climate change, he doesn't give it up. He works it aggressively," says Lynn Pascoe, the UN's undersecretary for political affairs. "If an issue is important enough to engage him as secretary-general, then he's going to keep at it with a constant push for results," he adds. "It's not one speech and on to the next topic."
RSS feed
